Thunderbolt! (1947)

Original title

Thunderbolt

Directed by

John Sturges, William Wyler

Genre

propaganda film

Country

United States

Runtime

44 min

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 25 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This film follows a P-47 Thunderbolt squadron of the Army Air Forces during a mission in World War II. It shows their day from waking up through a combat sortie and return to base. The movie uses real combat footage to recreate one specific operation against German supply lines in Italy.

factualvisceralhistoricalearnestatmosphericgroundedimmersivewarlike

What happens

Thunderbolt is a 1947 film directed by William Wyler and John Sturges which documented the American aerial operations of Operation Strangle in World War II, when flyers of the Twelfth Air Force based on Corsica successfully impeded Axis supply lines to the Gustav Line and Anzio beachhead. The film was originally shot in 16mm color by members of the Army Air Forces. The 12th Combat Camera Unit recorded the combat footage using cameras mounted on some of the P-47s and a B-25 medium bomber equipped as a camera ship to accompany the fighters. Narrated by Lloyd Bridges and Eugene Kern, Thunderbolt! purports to follow a P-47 Thunderbolt squadron of the group through an interdiction mission from the time they wake up to their return to base afterwards with one aircraft missing. The directors edited their footage to recreate a mission against an unidentified target in northern Italy that resembles that of a May 1, 1944, mission against a railroad tunnel at Rignano sull'Arno, Italy, in which Lt. Col. Gilbert O. Wymond Jr. was awarded the Silver Star for destroying an ammunition dump concealed in a house near Siena and incurred severe damage to his P-47, Hun Hunter XIV. Wymond appears prominently with his P-47 throughout the documentary. Directors Wyler and Sturges, serving as officers in the AAF, were attached to the 12th CCU during the period it filmed the activities of the 57th Fighter Group. Wyler used his association as a "passport" to visit many areas of liberated Europe after the completion of the initial shooting. Although shown to the press late in 1945, Thunderbolt! was not generally released until 1947 by Monogram Pictures, and was re-released in 1950 during the Korean War. Half of the 1947 profits from the film's release went to the Army Air Force Relief Society and the United States Treasury. The introduction to the film by James Stewart was filmed in late January 1947. Stewart had commanded a bomber wing as a colonel during the war. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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